Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Bread from the machine

This is the newest addition to Kate's kitchen. I picked this up early this summer when I was home at my parents house. Mom doesn't use it too much so she asked if I would get any use out of it. Immediate I replied yes! It seems these gadgets are in a lot of my friends kitchens.

I never thought I would enjoy the bread maker. I guess I felt it was a lot of flour for just one little loaf and most machines have a huge hole in the middle from the kneader. Luckily mom still had the instruction book with it and I found out that you can use these to just mix your dough!!! RIGHT ON in my mind. I mean I don't mind doing it but its great when you don't have to do it and make a mess all over the counter.

So the first time I made the bread I just followed a recipe in the instruction book but instead of setting it on a basic baking selection I decided to put it on the dough cycle. Once it was done I took it out and divided it into two balls. I placed these into two small round coffee tins and let it rise. Once it was about double I place in the oven and baked at 350 for 40-50 minutes.

The bread turned out great and tasted wonderful too. Especially when it was warm and smothered in peanut butter and molasses!!

Today I was busy preparing for our weekend camping trip and was using the oven to make pita bread and granola bars so I decided to just bake the loaf in the machine. It turned out OK but not as nice as when I cooked it in the oven. And of course there is the hole in the bottom from the kneader. I think that I will stick to using the dough cycle.